1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of retrieving and displaying problematic information about a printer prior to a print job being printed on the printer. The present invention also relates to a computer program product and corresponding graphical user interface for retrieving and displaying the problematic information about the printer.
2. Discussion of the Background
Many personal computers used at the home or office are directly connected to a printer, i.e., a one-to-one connection. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional set-up of a computer 2 and a printer 6 attached via a cable 4. The printer 6 includes a connection port 7 for attaching the cable 4 to the printer 6. Thus, a user using the computer 2 can select an item or other object to be printed on the printer 6.
FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of a conventional application 10 (which may include a word processing utility such as the one sold under the trademark MICROSOFT WORD) interfacing the printer 6. The conventional application 10 is hosted on an operating system 14 resident on the computer 2. A user may print a desired object (e.g., document including text and/or an image, hereinafter referred to as a document) on the printer 6 using the application 10. A printer driver 12 and language monitor 13 are printer and operating system specific software interfaces, which control the user-requested print job. The operating system 14 sends signals in accordance with instructions from the printer driver 12 and language monitor 13 to the local port 18 via a connection 8, thus placing signals corresponding the printer driver 12 and language monitor 13 on the cable 4 connected to a parallel port 9 of the printer 6.
Increasingly, a plurality of printers and computers are connected to a network, such as a Local Area Network (LAN). For example, FIG. 3 illustrates a plurality of computers 2 and printers 6 connected to each other via a network 5. The computers 2 and printers 6 illustrated in FIG. 3 are identified by the same reference numeral, however, the network may include many different computers and printers connected together.
In both of the examples discussed above (i.e., FIGS. 1-3), the user must designate a printer on which a file is to be printed (i.e, the name of the printer). In the example shown in FIG. 1, the printer name is always the same because there is only one printer. Thus, the user need only designate the printer a first time. In the example shown in FIG. 3, there are a plurality of available printers from which the user may choose. Thus, the user has the option of printing a document on any one of the plurality of printers.
In many cases, the selected printer is off-line or has other problems related to it so that the document cannot be printed on the printer. In these instances, the user is not notified that the print job has failed, but rather determines this by inspecting the selected printer and noticing that the file has not been printed. Then, the user must troubleshoot the problem and reprint the document.
Currently, there are available printer network management software packages (such as the one sold under the trademark HP JETADMIN), which continuously poll a predetermined set of printers or a single printer to determine whether or not the printer(s) are on-line (i.e., capable of being printed to). For example, HP JETADMIN may display the selected printer on the display of the user""s computer in a color green, indicating that the printer is connected to the host computer. HP JETADMIN may also display, for example, one of the paper trays of the printer in a color red, which indicates that that particular paper tray is not operating. Based on results from continuously polling the printer(s), HP JETADMIN accordingly changes the color from red to green and vice versa. Thus, the user is able to view the displayed printer icon and determine whether or not to submit a print job to the selected printer.
However, a problem with HP JETADMIN and other network management software applications is they must continuously poll the printer(s). This increases the network traffic on the network, and thus reduces the efficiency of the network. Another problem with this type of printer management is that when a user opens a word processing utility, the window required for the word processing utility generally covers the displayed printer icon. Thus, the user is unable to see whether or not the printer icon is highlighted red or green. Therefore, the user is not able to determine whether the printer is on-line, etc., and must close the word processing window to see the status of the printer. This is a very cumbersome and tedious process.
Accordingly, one object of this invention is to solve the above-noted and other problems.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a novel method of notifying a user about a problem with a printer prior to the print job being sent to the printer.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a novel computer program product and corresponding graphical user interface which retrieves and displays problematic information about a printer when the user opts to print a file on the printer. Also provided are alternative options from which the user may choose if the printer is not functioning properly.
To achieve these and other objects, the present invention provides a method of printing a document, for example, on a recording medium of a printer selected by a user. Problematic information is retrieved about the printer in response to the printer being selected and before the print job is sent to the printer. The retrieved problematic information is displayed to the user. In addition, the problematic information may be retrieved, for example, by transmitting Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) commands to the printer, if the computer is connected to the printer via a network, or by transmitting printer job language commands if the computer is connected to the printer via a parallel port.